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Comment by munchbunny | Hacker News Reader

The best framing I’ve heard for this is that it’s missing the forest for the trees.

Better said in someone else’s words than my own:

https://mobile.twitter.com/btanderson72/status/1279507428128...

But the problem with white/black isn't the metaphor, it's that we're using those terms for skin colors in a way that is blatantly wrong. If we're going to change the way we speak, is it really better to imply those words meant race all along? Changing the part that was correct instead of the part that was incorrect?

If we're going to change the way we speak, is it really better to imply those words meant race all along?

It’s not about what the word meant all along.

“Negro” wasn’t considered a derogatory term for black people for the majority of its history as a word, but today, especially in English, we avoid it because of the legacy it picked up.

You don’t have to admit the word was always racist to believe that we should use some other words in today’s context.

If the words had changed meaning, sure. But blacklist/whitelist are not words that have become racist. They're the same as they always were.

I have used these terms both in English and in my native language for decades and it never crossed my mind that there could be any relation to skin colors. But now they are associated with this so I would argue it‘s more racist now since we‘ve connected something negative (a blacklist) in our minds with the idea of being black.

I think this will do harm in two ways:

a) harm because of the explicit association as just described

b) harm because many people (possible supporters) will reject these kind of things as unreasonable

Now, I think the policy itself is not a big thing. Can be done. But it should have included a statement that the underlying idea is perhaps a hit silly and this is done to avoid this distraction.

How do you see the forest when you’ve been born into it? You chop down all the trees around you. Using master/slave casually in a discussion is a tree. I’m sorry I’m just trying to see the forest.

Walk out of it, don't burn it down.

> "How do you see the forest when you’ve been born into it? You chop down all the trees around you."

Once everybody does that, the forest is gone and then, well, game over.

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